Handmade Curtains: The Ultimate Luxury for Your Home

Handmade curtains are the ultimate luxury for your home. Nothing achieves that liquid, flowing drape quite like a handsewn hem. So what makes them different from a machine-stitched or “hand-finished” curtain? It all comes down to process, skill, and intuition.

Preparing the Fabric

To start, your chosen fabric will be painstakingly pressed and laid out flat - no kinks, no wrinkles, no bunching - just a lovely flat piece of fabric that lays still, like a patient on the operating table, until all of its stitches have been applied. That's what it means to commission hand-sewn curtains.

Handmade Curtains deliver Perfect Hems

Your seamstress will start by pressing side hems before blind stitching them in place using a herringbone stitch. The bottom hem is created with a double fold pressed sharply and blind stitched in place.

A mitred corner prepared for stitching.

The bottom hem of a curtain is one of the most important elements of the whole piece - it's where that luxurious drape can be won or lost, it really is where the magic happens. In most cases your designer will recommend adding weights, either corner weights or, for lighter weight fabrics, a weight chain - this keeps the fabric hanging in those liquid-like folds.

Every tiny, invisible stitch contributes to the quiet sense of weight and movement that makes handsewn curtains the unmistakable.

The Power of Interlining

When the work is finished on the main fabric we'll turn our attention to the linings. If you opt for the full works we'll start with the interlining - sandwiched between the main fabric and the final lining, it's an invisible layer that adds weight and improves the thermal properties of your curtain.

An interlined threshold curtain keeps draughts at bay!

Interlining is anchored to the centre of the curtain, using an overlocking stitch - completely invisible on the exterior and sewn with loose tension to preserve the all important drape and movement. The interlining is then secured to the side hems with a herringbone stitch.

Finishing Touches

Moving on to the final lining which you'll have chosen with help from your designer - it will be hemmed before being slip stitched in place along both side seams and secured a few centimeters onto the bottom hem.

Your heading tape will be applied - this might be a standard pencil pleat header or a hand created buckram header - before the curtain receives its final press, ready for installation.

How to Train Your Curtains

Training your curtains makes an incredible difference

When your curtains are installed your curtain designer will offer to train your curtains - a process of gathering the curtains into precise folds and securing them across the length with string for several days.

I know - it seems odd right? Why would you tie string around your new (probably very expensive) curtains? Please believe me: when the curtains are finally hung and trained, the fabric falls in soft, sculptural folds that feel calm and timeless — the kind of detail that quietly transforms a room.

At 53 Interiors, every curtain is made this way — carefully, by hand, and with the kind of attention that only comes from years of practice.

If you'd like to start your journey towards incredibly curtains get in touch, we'd love to hear from you.